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If it is empty then it is empty
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Perishing like wasps in wet tar,
we can’t claim an answer
but only wear our raincoats,
acting out past wounds, meditating
by watergardens where amphibians breed,
owners of the pond.
Perishing enough to create parables
to be sold to our advantage,
holding hands in the summer or after a bath.
We look through windows, keeping
vigil with homebound strangers, unlocking cupboards,
storing gifts on laundryroom shelves.
We welcome the red squirrel, make love
most afternoons, tie-dye our t-shirts.
burning colours hotter at the edges.
We meet old mentors perishing,
drunk and mutated, mentors who taught us
to read the lines in our palms, how to find music underwater,
poetry under siege, sometimes showing us
the pitter-patter pace of caterpillars on a damp park lawn.
Depths pushing out like a well-nourished womb,
depths we perish in, drained of desire,
listless in the light. Don’t bother complaining,
we were made to perish, grow a revolutionary peace
in the crisp leaves of burnt sage, discover mercy
in a backwards fall.
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Copyright © 2013 by Allison Grayhurst
amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst
First published in “Kritya”, 2013
http://www.kritya.in/0808/En/poetry_at_our_time 4.html
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Click to access 20151023No_Raft_No_Ocean_by_Allison_Grayhurst.pdf
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http://scars.tv/cgi-bin/framesmain.pl?writers
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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:
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